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What, then, is this Kind, this Matter, described as one stuff,
continuous and without quality?
Clearly since it is without quality it is incorporeal; bodiliness
would be quality.
It must be the basic stuff of all the entities of the sense-world
and not merely base to some while being to others achieved form.
Clay, for example, is matter to the potter but is not Matter pure
and simple. Nothing of this sort is our object: we are seeking
the stuff which underlies all alike. We must therefore refuse to
it all that we find in things of sense- not merely such
attributes as colour, heat or cold, but weight or weightlessness,
thickness or thinness, shape and therefore magnitude; though
notice that to be present within magnitude and shape is very
different from possessing these qualities.
It cannot be a compound, it must be a simplex, one distinct thing
in its nature; only so can it be void of all quality. The
Principle which gives it form gives this as something alien: so
with magnitude and all really-existent things bestowed upon it.
If, for example, it possessed a magnitude of its own, the
Principle giving it form would be at the mercy of that magnitude
and must produce not at will, but only within the limit of the
Matter's capacity: to imagine that Will keeping step with its
material is fantastic.
The Matter must be of later origin than the forming-power, and
therefore must be at its disposition throughout, ready to become
anything, ready therefore to any bulk; besides, if it possessed
magnitude, it would necessarily possess shape also: it would be
doubly inductile.
No: all that ever appears upon it is brought in by the Idea: the
Idea alone possesses: to it belongs the magnitude and all else
that goes with the Reason-Principle or follows upon it. Quantity
is given with the Ideal-Form in all the particular species- man,
bird, and particular kind of bird.
The imaging of Quantity upon Matter by an outside power is not
more surprising than the imaging of Quality; Quality is no doubt
a Reason-Principle, but Quantity also- being measure, number- is
equally so.
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